


The Only Truth I Know

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Cuddling, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Postcoital, Rain, skoulsonfest2k14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 14:59:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2196171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson and Skye in bed watching the rain. </p><p>Prompt "Rain" for Skoulsonfest2k14.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Truth I Know

**Author's Note:**

> Eva Cassidy's cover of "Kathy's Song." Seriously. Also the original, but Eva Cassidy.

Droplets of rain slide down the window, making patterns that are quickly redrawn, and beyond the awning it’s pouring. Their little room in the B&B is on the second floor, so the sound of rain fills the whole room with a soothing white noise.

“I don’t think I can move,” Skye sighs into his shoulder as she curls into his naked chest.

He’s barely caught his breath, barely shaken himself out of the stupor that always follows when Skye takes charge. She’s passionate, about sex as about everything, and while he’s never exactly had a problem keeping up, it’s been a while since they had enough privacy to really let go. And she had taken advantage of it.

Not that he’s going to complain.

“We don’t have to move,” he points out as he slides a hand down her bare back, enjoying the sensation of slipperiness caused by the sweat still pooled at the small of her back. “We can stay here all day.”

“Good.” She stretches, arching herself against him so that her lips brush along his jaw; he tilts his head to give her access to his lips and returns a slow, deep kiss. When she pulls away, he smiles against her mouth.

“I haven’t had a weekend off in forever.”

“You needed one, mister Director.”

“I really did.”

They don’t have time for things like this. Not the sex, they make time for the sex, but the after part. Lounging together on the bed. Feeling her back break out in goosebumps as the sweat dries. Letting himself be overcome by postcoital haziness in the middle of the afternoon.

It feels decadent, like a luxury, and he plans to enjoy every second of it.

“I like the rain,” Skye shares as she stares out the window.

“Hmm,” he answers because he knows, but he also doesn’t want to stop her from telling him. Every time she shares something about herself, even when it’s something she’s shared before, it’s slightly different. A different story, a different facet of herself.

“When it’s like this, if you find a little space somewhere, you can pretend you’re all alone. Even when you’re not.” _Even when you’re in a crowded orphanage or sharing a room with two other foster sisters_ , he hears. _Even when your foster father is yelling again._

He swallows, tries to release the tension in his muscles that follows whenever he thinks too much about Skye’s childhood. It doesn’t help her.

“One house I was in, the Reynolds’s, they had this great window seat with curtains. I used to sit back there for hours, especially when it rained. It was like I was the only person in the world.”

He gets that. It’s really coming down outside, so that visibility is near zero. Paired with the white noise that blocks out any other noises in the house, it feels like they’re alone.

Coulson kisses the top of her head, tilts his neck enough to lay his cheek there.

“I’d like that. To be all alone. With you. Nothing to do. No one to interrupt.”

She’s never really been alone, not like that. Even when she was on her own, functionally alone, the realities of the outside world were always pressing in on her. He wishes he could give her that — give her a life that included the possibility of finding time truly alone, with no need to worry about the bums breaking into her van or the HYDRA spies gathering alien artifacts or the gifted individuals who might find themselves being used as tools in the wrong hands.

“Neither of us would like it if our lives were like this all the time,” Skye tells him, basically reading his mind.

“I have a hard time believing that.”

She laughs, nuzzles her face against his chest, lets her lips brush the scar.

“Okay, we’d both like it fine. But you know we love what we do.”

“Yeah,” he answers. He likes the way she says it, placing stress on the _we_ . The truth is that he hasn’t been part of a _we_ since he lost his mother, and even then, he had never been able to share a lot of his life with her. Everyone he’s ever been close to has been either a security threat or a subordinate. And while technically Skye is a subordinate (and while technically Skye is also a security threat), she’s also different.

She is _Skye_. She is his partner in everything. He hadn’t even been aware he was missing that until he met her.

And he’s always going to be tempted by romanticized notions of a normal life, but the truth is that he’s always picked SHIELD before. And Skye has picked SHIELD, so there’s no chance he would ever go anywhere.

Neither has said it in so many words, but they’ve been together, like this, for almost two years now, and he has no plans to be apart from her. Ever. For the rest of his life.

“Does marriage appeal to you?”

He snaps his mouth shut, embarrassed at having asked a question he didn’t really intend to. He regrets it even more when Skye tenses up against him, though she doesn’t pull away, doesn’t move her face from his chest. Silence stretches between them, and even though he knows it’s maybe ten seconds, it feels like minutes.

“If it didn’t, would that be a problem?”

“No,” he answers honestly. “You’re already my family.”

“You’re my family, too.” Her voice is too quiet, and it bothers him that he can’t read it.

“If you don’t want to make it official we don’t have to.”

“But you want to.”

“I want you to know that I’m not going anywhere. For me, this is permanent.”

“For me, too.” She takes a deep breath, and he can feel her back shudder under his hand, like she’s fighting back tears.

“Then that’s all that —”

“Yes,” she cuts him off, pushes up from his chest enough to meet his eyes.

“Yes marriage appeals to you, or yes you’ll marry me?”

“Either,” she answers. “Both.”

“Oh.”

His surprise quickly turns into pleasure; his lips curve into a smile as hers do the same, and then he pulls her down on top of him. She laughs as her mouth meets his, making the kiss awkward — too much laughing and smiling and teeth. He nuzzles the side of her face instead as he rolls on top of her.

“I love you,” he whispers as he pulls back enough to make eye contact again.

“I love you, too.” Skye’s eyes are suddenly wet beneath him, and when she rolls her eyes at herself, a few tears spill down her cheeks. “I always wanted a home and a family, and you gave them to me.”

He almost laughs at how wrong she has it.

“ _You_ gave them to _me_.”

She tugs him down on top of her, guides his lips to hers, and kisses him deeply. Her tongue is demanding, mapping out his mouth as though it’s territory she hasn’t charted already, and he groans against her.

The lazy satiation of mere moments before is gone, and he’s suddenly beset by the need for _more_. When she pulls away, his moan of disappointment earns him another, shorter, kiss.

“We’re going to be a pretty awesome family, huh?”

He just grins at her, pleasantly overwhelmed, before diving forward to kiss her again.

They will still be great when they get back to the Playground tomorrow, but for now he wants to enjoy having her all to himself for the next twenty four hours. Alone with no cell phones or laptops, with rain chasing patterns down the windows and blocking out the rest of the world.

 

 


End file.
